Post navigation

Newsletter

There has been a lot going on lately, so Susan has released a newsletter:

Since our meeting last month there have been some very positive pieces of news, so I’m writing to bring you up to date.

1) The £300K Cycling Ambition Grant work for Links to Foxton Station, connecting Frog End and Foxton Bottom (gosh, not sure about the name of this route) will be put into action in November, with work taking about eight weeks. There are no plans per se – it’s all County-owned land and the idea is to ‘walk and build’. The council is writing to parish councils and residents to keep them informed and they’ve suggested meeting on site early on to discuss any particular snags or concerns that arise – including crossing the A10 and any manageable measures that can be put in place.

2) Yesterday Patrick Joyce, Jim Chisholm and I met with the agent for the Trumpington Meadows developer (Grosvenors) to discuss expediting the Trumpington Park and Ride to Hauxton cycle link. The good news is that work will start in December and should be completed by spring, depending on the weather. This is happening in conjunction with work to create the Country Park adjacent to the new housing. As you may remember from our May 19th Awareness Ride, the northern connecting piece of the route cannot be constructed in a permanent form until the entire housing development is completed, and that will be years not months from now. So Grosvenors has agreed to create a temporary path for the meantime. This extra path was not in the Section 106 agreement and is down to goodwill.. Probably this will be situated alongside the haulage track that we all cycled down in May, but yesterday we identified another possibility, which the County Council project manager will explore immediately. In any case, work on one or the other will happen as part of the December-spring work phase.

3) Shepreth Parish Council has agreed to cover one meeting room hire cost per year, which makes a total of four Cambridgeshire parish councils covering room hire costs.

4) Cllr Fiona Hill of Royston has arranged for us to hold our next meeting at the Coombes Community Centre in Royston on January 14 (evening).

5) The whole of the Foxton-Bottom – Harston path will be sided out (vegetation pulled back) but with care. This stretch is in reasonably good condition.

6) We are aware that the siding out of the Royston-Melbourn path actually worsened the path by exposing new pot holes and creating accumulations of gravel. I’ve mentioned the problem to Patrick Joyce and we will see what we can do about it. The fact that the path is so bad now actually helps to focus attention on finding a long-term solutions. I’d like to suggest that we now make a concerted effort to tackle the Melbourn-Royston route, including the path and also exploring options for the roundabout. To this end I’ve asked Rod Taylor as Royston sub-group representative if he could lead the way on this, and I’m sure this will help us to come well geared up for the Jan 14 meeting in Royston.

7) Thanks to everyone for filling out the Transport Strategy questionnaires – apparently our corner of South Cambs/North Herts had a noticeably high response to the consultation, which can only help our case.

8) Finally, we need to pull together a concise strategy document that our county council officers can refer to in anticipation of funding opportunities. I was thinking we could draw upon the work that various members did last spring, and which is documented on our website. Please let me know if you would like to contribute to this and perhaps we can present a draft to the meeting in January.